Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-30-2020

Publication Title

Religions

Publisher

MDPI

Volume

11

Issue

8

First page number:

1

Last page number:

17

Abstract

Research has documented that sexual minorities and people living with HIV/AIDS have successfully used religious coping to help them overcome life challenges related to their sexual orientation and HIV status, including religious struggles surrounding their faith brought about by stigma and discrimination that have historically been promoted by organized religion. Research has also documented how sexual minorities and people living with HIV/AIDS have utilized family support as a vital resource for effectively coping with life challenges associated with homophobia, heterosexism, and HIV stigma, which have historically been perpetuated in certain family and faith dynamics. The aim of the community-engaged, qualitative study described in this article was to examine the synergistic effects of religious coping and family support, particularly in the context of Catholic family ties, as a unified mechanism for supporting HIV-positive gay men in the face of religious struggles and other life challenges. Confidential, semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine HIV-positive, gay men from the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, Canada, to obtain their perspectives on how and why their Catholic family ties have helped support them through their religious struggles and other life challenges. Utilizing a modified Grounded Theory approach, interview data were collected and analyzed until data saturation was achieved. The findings and lessons learned from the study’s analysis are discussed in this article, which elaborates on the unique synergy of religious coping and family support as interconnected mechanisms that could be of significant value for supporting HIV-positive gay men experiencing religious struggles and other life challenges.

Keywords

Catholic; Family ties; Gay men; Living with HIV/AIDS; Religious struggles

Disciplines

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies | Psychiatric and Mental Health

File Format

pdf

File Size

265 KB

Language

English

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Download

UNLV article access

Search your library

Share

COinS